This is a blog to discuss philosophy, chess, politics,
C. S. Lewis, or whatever it is that I'm in the mood to discuss.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Why Calvinists Can't Solve The Problem of Evil

I'm going to redate the old post, but I'm fixing the argument from evil to leave out the stuff about the best of all possible worlds.

The title here suggests that Arminians (or maybe universalists) can solve the problem of evil, and maybe that's something I don't want to imply. However, I am going to argue that while the theist has some hope of providing a rebuttal to the argument from evil if Calvinism is false, the theist who is as Calvinist is thoroughly embarrassed in the face of the atheist argument.

Let's look at the atheist argument from evil. The argument goes as follows:

1. God, if God exists, is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good.2. If there is a God, then there is no unnecessary evil.3. But there is unnecessary evil.4. Therefore God does not exist.

Now a lot of responses to the problem of evil employ two themes. One of those themes is that many evils in the world are not caused by God, but are the result of God's allowing creatures to act freely. If God makes us free to commit murder or not to commit murder, then God cannot guarantee that we not commit murder. Second, some things that seem evil from a temporal, present-day perspective may not be evils from an eternal perspective. So, for example, it may seem to me to be an evil that I have a certain health problem, but from God may see that there are elements of character that will improve within me if I suffer from this health problem.

The problem with Calvinism is that on the Calvinistic view God sovereignly determines the outcome of every action. And there are situations which persevere into eternity which very clearly could have been better. In particular, "Smith's going to hell" is a situation which goes preseveres into eternity and is not going to get better.

Consider what philosopher Douglas Jesseph calls "The World of Mr. Rogers."In the world of Mr. Rogers, it's all a big happy neighborhood and everyone does what is right, and then go to heaven when they die. This world is obviously a better world than this one. Just ask anyone who has gone to hell and see if they wouldn't prefer the World of Mr. Rogers.

Do creatures in the World of Mr. Rogers act freely? If you accept the Compatibilist theory of Free Will, then they do. The Compatibilist points out that there is a difference between doing what you want to do, and doing what you don't want to do. You act unfreely if you are dragged in chains back to your jail cell. You act freely if you are listening to your favorite CD, playing your favorite game, watching your favorite movie, etc. When your actions and your desires match up, you are acting freely. If your actions and desires don't match, then you aren't.

Now suppose you have the desires that you are caused to have. God arranges it so that you always want to do the right thing. God controls your desires and then gives you the freedom, that is the power, to act out those desires.

Given this theory of free will, it is easy to see that God could still give us free will and nevertheless still be able to create the World of Mr. Rogers, where no one sins and no one goes to hell. If Calvinism is true, then that is exactly the kind of free will that God has granted us. Calvinists will often say that God has every right to punish us for our sins because, after all, it is not the case that we wanted to do the right thing and were forced against our will to do the wrong thing. Rather, we did what we wanted to do, even though we were predestined to do it.

Is the World of Mr. Rogers boring? Well, if it's boring, then heaven will be boring too, because heaven is supposed to be a sin-free zone.

The simple fact is that if Calvinism is true, then God could have created the World of Mr. Rogers, but sovereignly chose not to. Why?

At this point it is possible to now appeal to human limitations, either limitations in human knowledge or in human goodness. Even though we can't see that this world is better than the WMR, it really is better, even though some people are damned in this world and no one is damned in WMR.I think these arguments from the limits of our knowledge have more force where the final outcome is unknown or inadequately understood. We know the final outcome in both worlds. Everyone is happy in the WMR and everyone gets saved. Many people suffer in our world and some are lost.

Another way of replying is to present a version of Paul's rebuttal from the Book of Romans, "Who are you, o man, to answer back to God?" Now if this is a version of the argument from the limitations of our knowledge, which I think it is, then it has some value, but not on a Calvinistic scenario. If however, it is a way of simply dismissing the argument from evil, it is a transparently question-begging argument. The AfE questions whether there is a God, that is, a being omnisicent, omnipotent, and perfectly good, to answer back to. We cannot assume that such a being exists in order to eliminate the question as to whether or not an OOP being exists.

But why would God want to give us any kind of free will other than the kind of free will that the compatibilist (and the Calvinist) is prepared to admit? The incompatiblist holds that human beings have the kind of freedom that is incompatible with our acting from a determining cause. If we sin, we could have done otherwise under the actual circumstances.

Consider a Star Trek I once saw. There was a man, who in the show was named Flint, who was born several thousand years BC, whose body was able to regenerate whenever it was damaged, granting him an virtually endless life. What that meant was that, over and over again, he saw his companions and wives die. He ended up on a planet in outer space where he decided to build the perfect companion, an android named Rayna. Rayna could converse with him on any subject imaginable, could be physically affectionate, but there was one problem. Its "love" for Flint was fully and completely determined by Flint's programming, and therefore was deficient as love. So Flint brought the Enterprise and Captain Kirk to the planet so that he could be a rival for Rayna's affections. (Captain Kirk was, in more ways than one, modeled after President John F. Kennedy--JTK, JFK. Say no more.) Anyway, since Rayna was an android, Rayna couldn't choose freely, and so fell over and became deactivated.

If God is love, then isn't there something deficient about love that is fully and completely determined by the one who recevies the love? If this is the case, then there is a good reason why a loving God might choose to give us incompatiblist freedom, even if this freedom results in sin and perhaps even eternal separation from God for some persons.

69 comments:

I'm not sure that both the atheist and theist in this discussion are not burdened by the problem of thinking that the terms "omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good" are meaningful.

I am not at all convinced that they are.

I have no idea what it means to be omnipotent, and I strongly suspect anyone of saying they do know what it means to be dellusional on that point.

One can say they know what a square circle looks like all day long, but it won't make it true.

These terms carry heavy weight in this argument, and it would do both sides well to actually define what they mean. But I've never seen a discussion about what is meant by God's omnipotence or omniscience, or perfect goodness that didn't, fairly quickly, start arguing from the speakers conclussions of this very debate.

The problem of theodicy informs their understanding of these terms. Their understanding of these terms frames the theodicy debate. In other words, the speaker, theist or atheist, when asked to define their terms, points to the conclussion and says "I mean the terms such that this result is logically demanded."

Rakshasas:I'm not sure that both the atheist and theist in this discussion are not burdened by the problem of thinking that the terms "omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good" are meaningful.That seems to be peripherial to the topic, the topic being the Calvinist's difficulty with the problem of evil. Regardless, even if you cannot define such attributes, it might be possible that a non-Calvinist God wouldn't necessarily need them. He would only need to be able to create beings that could freely love in an incompatiblist way.

I don't think the Calvinist is any more embarrassed by the argument than any other theist would be. Indeed, many of the apparent theological and philosophical problems posed by the existence of evil for Calvinism are no less formidible for the Arminian, or any non-Calvinist.

For example, one problem with Calvinism which you note is that "on the Calvinistic view God sovereignly determines the outcome of every action. And there are situations which persevere into eternity which very clearly could have been better. In particular, 'Smith's going to hell' is a situation which goes preseveres into eternity and is not going to get better."

Aside from the rather question-begging assertion that someone's going to hell for all eternity is something which could have been better (from Smith's point of view, yes, but objectively??), it is no less true that there are situations which could have been better even given Arminian assumptions. Even the Arminian usually admits that God could have created humans without libertarian freedom who would always have chosen to do what is morally right, but He did not deem it fit to do so. Has the Arminian also proved that God made the right choice?

Similarly, the Calvinist is charged with proving how God's choice of creating a world in which men are determined (in a soft determinist way) to sin is better than the choice of creating a world in which no men sin. But can the Arminian prove that the choice to create a world in which men use libertarian freedom to sin is better than a world in which no such freedom exists? I tend to think that the burden of proof is difficult for both to bear.

The final point about love is less a point than a question, and a question which I, for one, am prepared to answer in the negative. I am impressed by the thought of a love which is genuine and spontaneous, rooted in the subject's ideas of loveliness and beauty, and in which the perception of the loveliness of the object plays some sort of causal role. I am not so impressed by a love which is simply willed in a manner that is at some level severed from all such connections. But that is exactly what libertarian freedom implies. Ultimately, according to the libertarian view, though internal disposition and external circumstances may play some sort of role, none of them taken individually or together is determinative. In the end, things like love are chosen for no particular psychological reason whatsoever. That sort of love seems quite deficient to me. It bears more of a resemblance to winning the lottery than to what I usually think of as love.

Some good stuff here, Victor! However, I'm going to be shamelessly self-serving and point out that I developed many of these ideas in two articles in Faith and Philosophy: "The Free Will Defense and Determinism" (vol. 8, 1991, pp, 340-51), and "Is There Freedom in Heaven?" (vol. 16, 1999, 69-82). In the latter, I develop a notion of "proximate compatilibilism," which allows for the coherence of determined free actions, provided that they contain in their causal history libertarian free actions by the same agent. This saves the very clear and powerful intuitions that motivate compatibilism, without the conceptual costs of a full-blown compatibilist theory. Of course, it doesn't help the Calvinist solve the problem of evil, but as a die-hard Arminian, I haven't lost much sleep over that! ;-> Deep blessings to all!

"If this is the case, then there is a good reason why a loving God might choose to give us incompatiblist freedom, even if this freedom results in sin and perhaps even eternal separation from God for some persons."

Even if God gave this "freedom," and created, then by doing so He is choosing to create beings headed for Hell. The only difference between this theory and Calvinism is that in your theory, Almighty God is powerless or unwilling to do anything about those who do not "choose" Him. In Calvinism, and in the Bible, no one chooses God, not even one. Out of his love and for the excellence of His Name, God calls some to Himself.

Your way, God creates sinners but then is helpless to save them. In the Bible, understood in Calvinism, God weaves a plan to display His perfect grace, perfect wrath, perfect power, and glory forever.

God is sovereign; He will do as He pleases. That is the glory of being God.

Even the title is possibly a fallacy. A Calvinist (which I am very much so) need not solve a non-existent problem. The problem of evil is only a problem to someone willing to question the authority of God's revelation. If you presuppose (as I do) that the Bible solves the problem of evil in the person Jesus Christ, then the need to have another solution is gone. God does not have to conform to our reasoning. What we call a problem may be quite different to what He does and He is right.If I were to say to you there is the problem of wrinkles in shirts on Sunday morning, only my wife would say it must be solved, but not I. In that framework - she would win regardless of my ability to reason.In the realm of good and evil, God decides the fundamental meaning of those terms and all of their nuance. I often say that words like life, love and joy are God's to define and not Webster or Roget. We put too much stock in our reasoners and not enough in God's Book. - Thanks for the discussion - I dig chess too by the way. I don't think Fischer is resting in Peace.

It's all predestined, therefore in God's mind everything is in its right place within eternity. Our contingent existence isn't really so: whatever we do is right and correct to God because is done according to his eternal disign.

Calvinism taken into its extreme leads into the zen satori: my life is an ever present in God's mind. Nothing I do is defective, nothing is missing. I live an eternal transparency.

VR: "... Do creatures in the World of Mr. Rogers act freely? If you accept the Compatibilist theory of Free Will, then they do. The Compatibilist points out that there is a difference between doing what you want to do, and doing what you don't want to do. You act unfreely if you are dragged in chains back to your jail cell. You act freely if you are listening to your favorite CD, playing your favorite game, watching your favorite movie, etc. When your actions and your desires match up, you are acting freely. If your actions and desires don't match, then you aren't."

But, of course, if you are being dragged in chains back to your cell, you are not acting. You are being acted upon.

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About Me

I am the author of C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason, published by Inter-Varsity Press. I received a Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989.